Dining Out: Cornerstone Portsmouth goes beyond pizza and beer

Thursday

Sep 6, 2018 at 3:01 AMSep 6, 2018 at 8:45 AM

By Denise J. Wheeler

The late August day was a sizzler. The National Weather Service announced we’d beat a record temperature set back in 1953 and, as the dew point soared, the heat index hit 104 degrees. Yet here I was, sitting at a bar, thinking of Oktoberfest.

It wasn’t due to a zealously set air-conditioner, nor was anyone drinking German beer from a boot. My flight of fancy was courtesy of a pretzel.

Cornerstone Artisanal Pizza and Craft Beer in Portsmouth’s West End boasts a beer list and pizza menu sure to inspire fans of both, but during recent visits I dug deeper into the menu and struck gold – including a golden Hearth Baked Pretzel appetizer for $4.

It was so simple, I almost didn’t order it. But as the great designer Coco Channel once said, “Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.”

The over-sized, salted, heart-shaped knots of dough, fire-grilled to soft, fluffy perfection, were served with Dijon mustard and beer cheese sauce for dipping. If the word “pretzel” calls to mind bite-size, crunchy Frito Lay snacks, know that Cornerstone’s pretzel is a homage to the classic, doughy Bavarian pretzel that has been around since well before 1111, when it was part of the crest of German bakers’ guilds. A staple of Oktoberfests around the world, these pretzels were once considered a sign of spiritual wholeness and good luck.

It is indeed good luck for lovers of casual, creative food and drink that Cornerstone Portsmouth opened earlier this summer. The restaurant serves lunch and dinner at the historic Frank Jones Brewery building by Plaza 800 where, at least for now, there is plenty of free parking.

Its spacious and lofty industrial design incorporates wood, metal and brick, hearkening to the building’s origins. The centerpiece of the open kitchen is a steel-lined, wood-fired. stone oven. In front of it, a line of kitchen staff hand-tosses and stretches dough, and oversees the baking of up to 17 to 18 pizzas at a time.

The 180-seat restaurant, which as of last week includes outdoor patio seating, is the second location for Cornerstone, run by uncle-nephew duo John and Michael Cavaretta. The original Cornerstone opened in Ogunquit, Maine, in 2012. This new location maintains the same emphasis on artisan, wood-fired pizza paired with craft beer. However, an array of appetizers and entrees, as well as a full bar serving wine and cocktails, give the restaurant dimension beyond its pizza and beer foundation.

For example, there’s a Cauliflower Burger with house-made herb aioli, arugula, tomato and red onion for $12. I’d never heard of such a thing. While I like a variety of foods, I find most veggie burgers as exciting as a Styrofoam tray, and, I imagine, if I ever bit into one, the taste would remind me of some veggie burgers I have known and not loved. Still, I’d recently tried cauliflower pizza crust at Streetza down the block, and that ended well, so I gave this so-called burger a whirl.

May I just say, “Oo-la-la.”

Do you think of orange zest, honey and garlic when you think cauliflower burger? Of course not. But thank The Food Gods that Cornerstone’s chefs did, because the combination makes for a savory/subtly sweet and hearty burger on a shimmering brioche bun. It’s robust and tasty enough to please a traditional beef burger fan, yet unique enough to entice foodies. The other half of the plate was piled high with french fries dusted with parsley, garlic, salt and pepper that were soft and potatoey on the inside.

Things were going so well on this trajectory, I decided to go deeper down the rabbit food hole and try the Vegan Beets Two Ways for $14. The dish is a beautiful and tasty example of beets dressed to the nines. On one side of the plate, char roasted red beets with a purple tint rest in a bed of smoky wild rice and mushrooms. On the other, yellow beets that were roasted on a cedar plank are piled high with what looks like brown spices. These are actually pea tendrils and dehydrated olives, which have a sharp, meaty flavor. The two beet servings are connected by a pool of citrus orange tofu reduction with a mild zing to it. The unusual blend of flavors and textures resulted in a refreshing dynamic duo.

While I’m on this track, the pizza dough at Cornerstone is vegan. Gluten-free dough is an option, and there is a dedicated gluten-free fryer.

By now you are likely asking, “What about the pizza?”

I’ll get there, as soon as I tell you why it’s worth risking clogging your arteries for Cornerstone’s Duck Bacon Poutine, $10. This appetizer comes in a bowl of billowy fries with a peppery gravy base and white cheddar cheese curds. Like our beets, the dish is dappled in Cornerstone’s rainbow micro greens mix that includes cilantro, purple daikon, tatsoi and celery greens. But its warm, intense wonder comes from the supple, chewy duck bacon. It’s so rich, and the portion so generous, that although there were four of us we didn’t finish it. We were saving room for the pizza de résistance.

From a choice of 11 rectangular pies, we ordered the popular Sweet Chicken Fig, $20, and Cajun Rubbed BBQ Pork & Red Cabbage Slaw, $21, both of which traveled to our table from the 500-plus degree oven with artisan pizza’s characteristic blistered, crisp crust. The chicken and fig pie features rosemary, roasted pulled chicken, fig-mascarpone purée and fresh pieces of fig, among a latticework of balsamic glaze with fig infusion. The Cajun pizza came with piles of shredded purple slaw over pulled pork, aged cheddar, scallions and a hint of whiskey barbecue sauce that I wished was more prominent.

That afternoon we found the crust chewier than usual. I went back a few nights later for the Not So Traditional Margherita pizza, $19, with herbed, roasted tomatoes, Italian mozzarella, fresh basil and olive oil and it had the thin, crispy crust and puffy "cornicione" edge I expected. When bitten into, the dough snapped on the outside, but had a fluffy texture on the inside.

General manager Patrick Patterson told me Cornerstone strives for dough consistency to the point of creating a rare tradition. Every day, since the first restaurant opened in Ogunquit, a ball of dough has been saved from the original batch and added to the next day’s dough. My guest wondered aloud if this called for a new type of culinary DNA test from Ancestry.com.

Though there was plenty of slaw on the Cajun pizza, in general I found myself wishing the delicious toppings were more plentiful. I wanted more of the zesty tomatoes on the Margherita pizza, more pork, chicken and fig on the others.

I did find a bounty of beer options. The beer list changes every day, sometimes two or three times a day. They have 24 draft lines and gleaming silver tap handles adorn the back wall of the bar. Patterson says the only constant there is Jack’s Abby House Lager from Framingham, Massachhusetts. It is a traditional, mild lager for domestic beer lovers who may otherwise shy away from the craft beer oeuvre. Think Miller Lite devotees. Still, Patterson is making no apologies. “This place is here because of a love and desire for craft beer and pizza. That’s who we are.”

During my visits the beer list ranged from Founders KBS, an imperial stout brewed with coffee and chocolate, then aged in oak bourbon barrels for a year, with a 12.3 percent of alcohol by volume, to Banded Horn Brewing Co.’s Wheat N’ Potatoes hoppy, herbal IPA at 4 percent.

Cocktails, as well as mocktails that were the best I’ve had, are made with locally sourced fruits and had a light, delicious, not-too-sweet summer feel to them. Patterson told me that bartender Ann Sexton heads to the Portsmouth farmers market to get fresh ingredients for the weekend’s cocktails each Saturday morning. While obviously not the “Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard” poet Anne Sexton that you literary types out there couldn’t help but flash back to, this Sexton is an artiste d’libations with a poetic flair for crafting drinks. I especially enjoyed the non-alcoholic Basil NoJito, $5, with fresh basil and hand-squeezed lime juice, simple syrup and soda, and the Blue Hibiscus Margarita on the rocks, $12, with local blueberry puree, Hibiscus puree, fresh lime juice and Sauza Blue tequila.

Patterson said all the bartenders provide input for the drink menu, so much so that in mid-to-late September Cornerstone will unveil an autumn cocktail list that includes a contribution from each bartender.

While there is an ice cream, crème brulee and fried dough bite du jour, Cornerstone plans on offering more desserts, including some cooked in the stone oven, in the near future.

Unique touches add personality to décor, including doorknobs under the bar to hang a pocketbook or jacket on, and a photo of the stars of “Ghostbusters” rests over the bar – a gift from the head chef.

The patio is dog friendly. If you want your canine to join you there, have a dog-free guest in your party visit the front desk inside and let the host know. In general it is bad form to bring a dog into a restaurant without checking in first, unless it’s a service dog.

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